How Long Have You Lived in the Darkness?
by hellomynameismarcy
Summary: Finn pays a visit to Susan Strong, with a special formula created by Princess Bubblegum. But when he finds an old suitcase in the bottom of her closet, he finds out about her dark past, and how long she really has been living in the darkness.
1. Bonni's Formula

"Annnd...done!" the princess shouted with joy. She held a slim needle in her hand, filled with a navy-colored liquid. "Now will you tell me what you were working on Prubs?" Finn said, sounding bored and tired. It was a hot day, and he had been at Candy Castle for three hours sitting in the princess's science lab. "Oh course my brave Finn!" She kissed him on the forehead, and Finn turned bright red. "I was visting Susan Strong, yesterday afternoon, when I thought about her muscles getting in the way of her youthful beauty. So I created a special formula that will shrink her body to normal size, but she will keep he strength!" Bonni shouted excitedly. Finn thought about Susan, but skinny, and blushed. Finn offered to take the needle down to her, and he soon began on his way. He just wanted to get down into the cool underground cave. When he got there, he quickly opened the door, and crawled down into the claustrophobic space. As he reached the bottom he felt cool air hit his forehead, and sighed. "Finn!" Susan shouted. She picked him up and hugged him gently, learning from the last time. When she lowered Finn, she began jumping up and down. "Sing song again Finn!" Finn sighed but got a rock and started a steady beat on the cave floor. He began to sing "Susan Strong, this is where you belong. Hangin' with me, on a fallen tree. Don't you think you deserve this? To live up here on the surface? Well I think you do and I think your friends do to. How long have you lived in the darkness? I just want to show you the light! Cuz' you're a human Just like me Susan And I want you in my life. Susan Strong, You turn my heart on."

Susan clapped and jumped up and down. She always loved when Finn sang her that song. Finn decided it was time to give her the needle, so he sat her down and injected the blue liquid into her. For a moment she paused and got a lost look in her eyes. The there was a huge light that filled the whole cave. Finn covered his eyes, until the light finally died down. He took one look at Susan and gasped. Susan was very pretty before but...she looked beautiful. Her raggedy old dress hung off of her like and ugly robe, but she still looked amazing. Her light blond hair hung down her back. Her hat had ripped off of her and he was able to see her head. Her bangs still hung in her face, but this was the first time Finn had noticed her blue eyes. She looked... familiar. Susan stood up and held her dress, so it wouldn't fall off. Finn decided to be a nice guy and said "Where do you live Susan? I'll get you something else to wear." Susan pointed to an old faded-in-color house and said "Blue home. Bad shutters." Finn looked at the old house and saw what she meant by "bad shutters". Susan had limited vocabulary, or at least that's how PB put it. He ran over and opened the door. He looked around the first room. It had old white carpet on the floor that was ripped in some places. There was an old dark green couch that was falling apart. The curtains were pulled closed, and looked as if they had never been opened. Finn walked down the dark hallway, through a doorway, with no door. It looked like it once had a door, there were hinges, but there was no other sign of a door there. He slowly walked in, and realized this must be Susan's bedroom. The bed was just a mattress on the floor. There was a closet, but again, no doors. It was completly empty. Finn took his hat off and scratched his head, pondering. He looked down into the bottom of the closet and saw a panel, built into the floor, rising up a little. Finn didn't want to open it, Marceline had once told him to mind other people's privacy when he asked her about the old shoe box in her closet. But he opened the panel anyway, out of curiousity. Inside was a tattered old suitcase and a pile of shiny paper. He picked up the paper, and realized they were something called "photographs". Marcy had told him about those. She had showed him one once. The photos were of a woman and a baby. They were sitting in the sand and behing them was the ocean. Finn shuddered. How could they sit so close to the ocean? He moved on to the next one and saw the same woman and baby, except maybe a few years later. The baby had wisps of blonde hair, the same color of the mother's. They were standing in front of a large window, and you could see tall buildings behind them. Finn put the pictures down, and picked up the heavy suitcase. He undid two latches and opened it up. Inside was a faded blue doll, that looked some what like a cat. There was also something folded up, a silver necklace, and a baby bottle. Finn pulled out the faded cloth and unfolded it. It was a long blue dress with ribbons and bows. It was beautiful. He carried it out of the house and handed it to Susan. She left to go change but when she came out, she looked just like the woman in the picture.


	2. Cloud Hunt

Susan spun around in her new dress. Well, new to her anyway. Finn could clearly tell she was enjoying herself. But he had to see if the formula had worked completley, and Susan still had her strength.  
Finn pointed to a fragment of an old building. Beautopia was filled with things like that.  
"Susan, can you throw that out of Beautopia?"  
Susan nodded. She wobbled over the the fragment and picked it up with ease. He watched in amazment as she threw it over the walls of the cave city. Finn clapped and smiled. Princess Bubblegum was known for changing people's lives, but this was brilliant. Finn sat down, to rest a minute, but Susan had more energy than ever. She begged for at least ten minutes for them to play a game. Finn knew that this wouldn't stop until he agreed, so reluctantly he did just that. He taught her the rules of Cloud Hunt and began to count. Susan ran, and hid behind some old rock. She giggled with excitment. As you can imagine, life for her doesn't get much more exciting than this. Finn reached ten and started to chant:

"Over the mountain, the ominous cloud  
Coming to cover the land in a shroud  
Hide in a bushel, a basement, a cave  
But when the cloud comes a'hunting  
No one is safe"

Susan's face went blank. You could almost see the color leave her face. Finn quickly turned around when he heard a high pitched, blood-curling, eardrum-shattering scream.


	3. Susan's Memories

"Susan? Susan are you okay?!" Finn shouted. But he couldn't even hear his own voice. Just that terrible scream. He ran around until he found Susan, lying on the ground with her head in her knees. Finn sat her up and said  
"Susan? Are y-you okay?"  
She looked up at him, tears covering her face.  
"Why Finn sing bad song? Why?" Her English was got worse when she was scared.  
"What are you talking about Susan? It's just the Cloud Hunt song. What is so scary about that?" Finn said, trying to comfort her even though he was very confused. Susan grabbed his hand and dragged him back to the blue house with the green shutters. They walked back into Susan's bedroom, where Finn had left the suitcase and photographs. She bent down over the suitcase and pulled out the faded blue doll. She held it carefully. She cradled it in her arms, but then put it up onto her bed. She grabbed the suitcase and pulled out a small leather book, that Finn hadn't noticed before. She held it tight to her chest and then said so quietly that it was hard to hear her  
"Susan watch momma die by evil green cloud."  
Then Finn realized something. Susan was a little girl during the Mushroom War, and somehow being down her preserved her and kept her from dying. What Susan was trying to say, is that as a little girl she watched her mother die in the nuclear explosion that killed all of the other humans. Finn just stood there for a moment. Staring. He then bent down and moved Susan's hair away from her neck. No gills. She was human. Finn wrapped his arms around her and whispered  
"I'm sorry Susan. Don't cry."  
Finn understood. His real parents were dead, he knew that. Then he remembered something. A while ago Princess Bubblegum invented a machine, that when you put something personal inside, it would playback your memories. Finn told Susan that he needed her doll, but he would bring it back soon. He slipped the raggedy thing into his backpack, and ran back to the Candy Kingdom.  
"Princess Bubblegum! Princess Bubblegum!" Finn ran right into her "I need to use your memory playback thingy!"  
Bonni sighed but saw that it was important to him. She gave him the key, and watched him bolt out of the door.  
When Finn got to the huge door, he quickly shoved the key into the lock. He walked inside and saw the machine that would show him what Susan had been through. He carefully put the doll inside and hit the "GO" button. He sat in the seat and put the machine hat on. He was about to enter Susan's memory.  
"Oh my God" a woman began. Doesn't she mean Glob? Finn guessed times were different then. She ran down a small hallway into a room with pink walls and a child's bed in the corner. Then there was the little girl, the one he saw from the pictures. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, and Finn guessed it was little Susan. The woman picked Susan up and grabbed a tiny coat. She then ran out the door and into a tiny room that had buttons with numbers on the wall. She pushed the button at the bottom, the button that said L. The room felt like it was sinking for a moment but then the doors opened again and they were in a different room. Finn would have been amazed but he was to focused on the memories. There was no one else in the room but there was a door leading outside. And outside was filled with moving devices, like the ones Finn and Jake saw everywhere, except broken and not-moving. Little Susan was strapped into a little seat on top of the seat that was already there, which Finn didn't understand. The device made a weird sound but then it started moving. He watched outside the window and saw tall buildings go by. He also noticed everyone was running. In the exact same direction...


	4. Into the Unknown

The strange machine stopped in front of a huge building that read "Town Hall". All of the running people were heading inside. Finn scratched his head. What was going on? Why did everyone seem so worried? Even though he was confused, he kept watching. When they ended up inside the building, Finn had gotten bored (as he did usually) and stopped listening. But eventually the man who had been speaking stopped and they were outside again. They were back inside the machine, and soon came back to the building. Little Susan was in the woman's arms. Finn assumed this was Susan's mother but he wasn't exactly sure. She sat little Susan down on a couch that was much nicer than the one in Susan's house. She then ran into another room and was packing a suitcase full of clothes and other various things. She began to walk out of the room, but then turned back and opened up a tiny wooden box. She pulled out the silver necklace, that had been in Susan's suitcase. Then she leaves and goes back into the tiny pink room. She packs another case, and Finn is sure that's the one he found in the closet. She packed it with tiny little girl shoes and dresses and other clothes. She also packed the blue cat doll that Susan had cradled. Then there was a ringing in the distance. The woman ran and picked up a white corded...Finn couldn't think of what that was called. But she talked into it and said

"Yeah, I'm all packed up. Susan is okay I don't think she understood half of the speech. I know..." she paused "She is only four. And we have to go live underground. I'm just scared for her. At least we will be together. I'm sure it can't be that bad, right?"

She looked doubtful of what she had said. But she put the thing down and ran back into the living room, and put the cases down. She ran back into the bigger room, the one with the big bed, and opened up a small closet. All the clothes were gone but there was a big book down at the bottom. It had photographs in it, the ones from the closet. But in a moment's notice they were out the door again. The suitcases had been packed into the back of the moving machine and it had started moving again


End file.
